


men like him

by peradi



Category: Jessica Jones (TV), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Drunkenness, F/F, Jessica defends her city, Killgrave is dead but still being an asshole, Lesbians, Loki is a dick, Women Being Awesome, gay nerds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-03
Updated: 2015-12-03
Packaged: 2018-05-04 19:14:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5345489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peradi/pseuds/peradi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Men like you always think that they're special, and they're always wrong," says Jessica. </p><p>Loki's smile is sharp as a whetted knife, but she knows the look in his eyes: he's angry. She's hurt his feelings. </p><p>"Now get the <i>fuck</i> out of my city."</p><p>--</p><p>Jessica meets a strange man in an alleyway. Neither of them quite know what to make of each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	men like him

Jessica's drunk off her ass, skulking around Hell's Kitchen like an alleyrat, the slow sprawl of cloud inching over a bloated bitch of a moon and they'll be rain soon, rain hazing into snow, and the snow'll be grey as it hits the ground. 

Kilgrave is dead, and that's fan-fucking-tastic, but that doesn't mean she doesn't see him every time her eyes slide shut, doesn't flinch at the colour purple, doesn't drink herself into oblivion two nights a week (hey, that's an improvement on 'all of them).

Malc's right. She needs to talk. She needs to get her ass to therapy -- only her ass has found it's therapy and is disinclined to leave. 

(What this means: her ass likes being planted on a bar-stool while the rest of her imbibes as much booze as it can)

Trish is getting less tolerant of this. When they were friends, the martyr complex was an itch; now that they are dating it's a rash, a bonfire, an all-encompassing frenzy that has her doing crazy shit like  _talking about feelings_ and it's enough to drive a woman to drink. 

Well.

More drink. 

You get the idea. 

By the time she staggers out of the latest dive bar it's what -- four? five? -- sky as grey as the pelt of a wolf, horizon pressing in, oh God she'll feel the booze tomorrow. 

What's worse: Trish will smell it. 

In the days BT -- before Trish -- she'd have found a warm, willing bed to pass out in. Bit of casual company, a good fuck, someone who doesn't mind the reek of cheap alcohol. 

But now she's got a girlfriend. She's in love -- and it's sickening, so gross she wants to puke and sing and dance all at the same time. She's in love, and she's learning that love is a vicious motherfucker with claws of steel and a heart made out of knives. 

Love is the sort of bitch that gets you by the throat and never lets go. But in a good way. It's the sweetest pain in the entire world, and Jessica would die ten thousand deaths rather than lose Trish.

Still. One more drink wouldn't hurt? She's already fucked up beyond belief; getting antsy about drink now is like getting fussy about a bit of piss in the ocean. 

(Translation: won't change a thing.)

That's when she hears it: the clatter. 

Jessica knows this city. She knows it like a favourite song, and she knows when notes are out of place -- and, for some reason, drink doesn't dull this sense -- rather, it heightens it: booze strips out all the annoying yammering distractions, like ethics or personal boundaries or hygiene. 

She knows the pulse and song of the city, and that clatter -- and the low, angry muttering -- are not part of it. 

She heads straight for the source of the noise. 

Well. 

 _Straight_ is being generous. Her steps weave this way and that, and at one point she has to lean against a lamppost (in a grimy halo of yellow light, her skin's jaundiced for a moment) but she gets there, mouth of an alley gaping like a threat and inside -- 

Inside is something green. Swirl of green, fabric -- she thinks of old-fashioned velvet curtains, rank with age -- and then a figure unfolds --

And unfolds, and unfolds. 

Shit, this guy is tall. 

But she can handle tall. Tall is easy.

"Go," says the thing -- why is she thinking thing so readily? -- and there are strange harmonics to his voice, like echoes of echoes, or like two people trying to speak at once. Jessica cocks one hip and glowers. 

"Who the fuck are you?" she says, but it comes out more like  _who-d'fuck-you_ but that's okay because the thing understands. 

"I am -- I do not have to explain myself to you.  _Go_ ," and the harmonics intensify, insectoid buzzing. 

"You should see the last guy who ordered me to do something I didn't want to do," she says, low and threatening, an organic rasp to her voice and that's command as well, but a different sort. 

"You're an intriguing one, child," says the thing. He's been rummaging in the garbage, but he holds himself like a king. 

(or like something that thinks he's a thing.)

"What's your name?"

"I do not have one, not at this moment. It was stripped from me. What is yours?"

"Cut the bullshit. I know what you're trying to do," because yes, that's the third time he's done it: tried to compel her. She feels it in the itch under her skin, the pressure behind her eyes. "I knew a man like you," she adds, bitter and vindictive, "once."

"There are no men like me," says the monster with acid green eyes and the most absurd costume Jessica's ever seen, and he smells of ice, frost, the spark of a struck match and there's a slow lingering chill crawling with a million spiderfeet over her skin and everything about him screams  _alien_. Xenoform. The sort of thing that burned New York down, down, down -- except he's not metal and fire, he's man (man-shaped, at the very least) all snowpallid flesh and that smell, that smell, of strange and terrible space-things. 

But then he says that sentence, that one sentence, six little words lined up in domino-tumble, a knot of common sense and just like that she  _knows_. He's smiling like a whetted knife. He's smiling like exactly when the world will end. He's smiling like he's got his finger on the switch. 

He thinks he does. 

Jessica shows her teeth. 

It's not a smile. 

It's bright and shining, and the light flickerflashes off her canines like it would glimmer off a wild-dog's fangs. 

"There are always men like you," she says. 

His eyebrows -- ridiculous hawkish things -- knit together. 

Jessica can't help but continue, "You think you're special, don't you? I bet that Daddy never loved you. Or, at least, you think he never loved you -- and that you blame him for everything because you can't ever accept that you're not a special fuckin' snowflake with some bullshit mission."

The thing's smile slides right off its face like snowmelt. "You pathetic, mewling quim. Don't you know who I am?"

"I know that you're the sort of pretentious motherfucker who thinks that calling a girl a quim is a great way of calling her a cunt without getting called out on it. I know that you dig around in gutters while dressed up like a fuckin' space prince. That you tried to make me do something I didn't want to do -- and that you  _won't tell me your name_ \--"

" _Insolent,"_ the thing says, starting forwards, and Jess lashes out without thinking: the thing's heavier than she thought, but flips over her shoulder like any other man, landing hard on the floor. She dashes her fist against his face; his nose breaks with a satisfying wet  _crack_. 

His blood, when it flows, is black. 

_Shit._

And then, absurdly, he starts to laugh. Stays sprawled on the ground, legs akimbo -- frighteningly, creepily erotic, posed like he knows he's sex on two feet -- but laughs up at her, the high wild laugh of a madthing. "Call me Silvertongue," he says, "call me Liesmith. I am here with no purpose besides to see how the city has rebuilt."

"Slowly," says Jessica, "but we're getting there."

"You always do," he says, and with a quick twist of green he's on his feet. His motheaten cape spills out behind him. "You're a special girl, aren't you?"

"I'm just me," she says. "But I've seen this city burn once, and it's never going to happen again."

"I could burn it, and you couldn't stop me."

"I would, and I could," she says, grabs his cape, tugs him forward. "Get the fuck out before I kick your scrawny English dick from here to Brooklyn."

"What have I done to you, that you see me as such a threat?" He's teasing. But there's darkness in his eyes, and Jessica's long learned that when you have that spiderflicker of fear about a man it's best to listen. 

Her body is wise, and powered by ancient instincts. She knows to listen to it. 

A pointed red tongue darts out, swipes the blood from his mouth. "You are mistaken if you think you have ever faced anyone like me," he says. He sounds like he's trying to convince himself. 

Jess lets him go. Pats one of his pointed cheeks. "You're a bastard, but you blame anyone but yourself. You kill people, and it's their fault. You had a chance at redemption but you're too much of a fuckin' idiot to take it. You're  _nothing_ , and if you ever come back I'll kill you."

He snarls, low and dangerous -- but then the rain starts to intensify. Flowing down in silver curtains. 

Lightning rends the sky with greedy crooked fingers. 

"The bastard has found me," the thing says, and steps back. "Do not forget me, for --"

"Can the threats, you miserable son-of-a-bitch. You're just another ten-a-dozen abusive psychopath -- "

"My  _name_ \-- you insolent bitch -- is  _Loki_."

Another crack-crash of lightning. He's gone. 

Jessica vomits where he once stood. 

It seems a fitting tribute. 


End file.
